Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for February 1, 2022. Thank you for starting your day with us.

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Leading today’s Morning Briefing: The King of Sportsbooks has arrived at Nationals Park. Yesterday morning, the Washington Nationals announced that BetMGM and the Washington Nationals announced the opening of the first retail sportsbook connected to a Major League Baseball stadium. The BetMGM Sportsbook at Nationals Park is open year-round, providing sports fans an innovative entertainment destination to watch and wager on games. Read the full article here.

Should the Washington Nationals Re-Sign Kyle Schwarber? The Answer is YES!  The Washington Nationals Signed and traded Kyle Schwarber in 2021 and they should bring him back in 2022 for the long term. Read the full article here.

MLB the Show 22 Video Game. Superstar Shohei Ohtani will be on the cover of Sony's MLB the Show 2022 video game. He becomes the first Asian athlete to be featured on the cover of a video game in the United States centered around the four major sports.

Must Listen: In the Clubhouse with Johnny DiPuglia. We published a brand new In the Clubhouse podcast where we sit down with Washington Nationals’Vice President and Assistant General Manager of International Operations, Johnny DiPuglia. We talk about the Latin American players market, Elian Soto and so much more. Listen to the full interview here.

Sizing up the National League East 2022 While we wait for the season to start or whatever, we are kicking off a new series at the Nats Report: Sizing up the National League East 2022. Over the course of the next weeks, we will be taking a look at teams around the National League East. We start our series with the New York Mets Read the full article here.

Talking about the lockout...

Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich from the Athletic take a closer look at why the MLB and the Players Association are still far apart. From the article "As the owners’ lockout drags into its third month, the essence of the problem is this: Major League Baseball contends it is proposing a better deal for players than the one they had under the most recent collective bargaining agreement. And the Players Association contends that the deal is worse." Read the full article here. [Subscription Required]

Major League Baseball Considering “Lottery” Draft To Discourage Tanking. As we inch ever closer to the proposed start of Spring Training, there has been very little movement in the negotiations between MLB and the Players Union, however, according to The Athletic, Baseball is considering a lottery system for its draft, beginning in 2023, that would see every team that missed the post-season participate.  Tanking is a major issue that the players union are trying to solve. Read the full article here.

You are all ready for the day!